Since I wrote my "Vote for Senator Kerry" last Friday, I've gotten
several dozen responses pro and con. Those arguing against a Kerry vote
primarily point to his stands on economic and social issues as reason enough
to vote for Bush. In reply, I simply had to repeat that my sole basis for
voting Kerry is the President's demonstrated record of haplessness and
incompetence in his management of foreign policy. I'm afraid he has so boxed
himself in, on policy and personnel, that the chaos in Iraq will get worse,
with no way out. While writing that memo, the Osama bin Laden tape surfaced.
Having puzzled over its meaning for a few days, I decided to take this
Election Day opportunity -- awaiting the outcome of the presidential race --
to connect it to my reasoning on Kerry's behalf.

In the past, in discussing the Islamic world, I've at times recommended the
analysis of Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan. As
it happens, he addressed the import and significance of the Osama tape in a
commentary yesterday at his website, which also concludes with a vote for a
Kerry presidency. All other issues pale by comparison to the way Al Qaeda,
Osama, and the Islamic world are dealt with in these next four years.

Monday, November 01, 2004
What's at Stake
The Revolutionary vs. the Statesman

The decision between Bush and Kerry will shape the world Americans live in
during the next four years. Even though Bush has been called the "CEO
President," that isn't how he has behaved. Bush has overthrown two
governments and announced the imminent demise of several others. Bush is a
revolutionary in Asia, a Robespierre. At least one of Bush's revolutions is
now mired in its Terror phase. What a real CEO thinks about Bush is obvious
from the Paul O'Neill / Ron Suskind memoir of life on the Bush cabinet. Kerry
in contrast is a statesman committed to navigating the status quo without
producing unnecessary turbulence.

Since the United States is essentially a vast island, three thousand miles
across and two thousand miles deep, its inhabitants often begin to think that
they are unconnected to the wider world. My friend John Walbridge suggested to
me that most Americans may not believe the rest of the world exists, as
opposed to being something that one occasionally sees on television.

September 11 was a reminder that even the defenses of an island can be
breached. It was also a signal that the old foreign policy prerogatives of the
United States government, to intervene as it liked to impose its will on other
regions, was no longer cost-free. In a world of increasingly powerful
technology, each individual is potentially much more powerful, and this was a
development that diabolical engineers in al-Qaeda saw clearly and figured out
how to use.

Al-Qaeda has ambitions beyond just blowing a few things up, no matter how
horribly. It is now a cadre organization, that is, it consists of a few
thousand committed fanatics. But it wants to be a political party. That is the
significance of Bin Laden's most recent videotape. He is posing as a champion
of "freedom" in the Muslim world (mainly freedom from US hegemony,
but he maintains also freedom from authoritarian and corrupt regimes in the
region backed by the US). Bin Laden is making a play not just to be a cult
leader but to succeed to the position of Gamal Abdul Nasser as an
anti-imperialist icon in the region. Ultimately al-Qaeda would like to get
control of entire states, and merge them into an Islamic superstate, a new
caliphate. It is a crackpot idea that will fail, but many crackpot ideas that
fail (e.g. the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia) do a great deal of damage along the
way.

George W. Bush has never been able to see clearly the nature of this threat,
which experts call asymmetrical. This word is a fancy way of saying that small
groups can now accomplish things that only states used to be able to. Bush is
trapped in Cold War thinking, where all major threats derive from other
states, from other countries. His first thought after September 11 was that
Iraq was behind it.

Bush invaded Iraq and occupied it rather than finishing off al-Qaeda and
putting Afghanistan on a proper footing. He has most of the fighting units of
the US military bogged down in a quagmire. His adventure in Iraq, which had
nothing to do with September 11, has the potential for destabilizing the
oil-rich Persian Gulf for some time to come, producing high petroleum prices,
high gasoline prices, and risking a major economic downturn for the US and the
world.

A second Bush administration will continue to pursue iron fist policies in
Iraq, which have obviously backfired. If Bush overstays his welcome in Iraq,
he risks creating a new kind of pan-Islamic nationalism. It is not impossible
for the Shiite leadership to join hands with the Sunni clerics if both decide
it is crucial to expel the Americans. I would put the odds of an anti-American
mass revolution in Iraq during a second Bush term at 50/50. The aftermath will
be further instability in the oil rich Persian Gulf (see above).

If Bush is reelected, it is clear that he will continue to attack his hit
list, which is pre-announced. He will strike at Iran. His infantry and armor
are tied down in Iraq. But he could mount a naval blockade of Iran, and he
could strike it from the air. He could also intrigue with impatient junior
officers in Tehran in hopes of making a coup. It would probably fail. But Bush
will be tempted to try.

Iran already has lively internal politics that are somewhat unpredictable, and
the people dislike their regime. The best interests of the US lie in letting
that internal process take its course. Bush will not keep his hands off. Iran
is in his axis of evil, and he has decided that the US will not countenance
states that adopt an active posture of enmity toward Washington. He will play
up Iran's nuclear program, which is nowhere near being able to produce a bomb.
He will play up Iran's support for Hizbullah, which the US views as an
international terrorist organization but which in recent years has mainly
functioned as a Lebanese national liberation movement. But his real motivation
is to unlock Iran's economy for US investment and to remove a foreign policy
thorn from the US side.

The potential for Bush's meddling in Iran to go wrong is great, as can be seen
in his Iraq policy, which has turned the latter country into the security
equivalent of a vast forest fire. Were both Iraq and Iran to end up
destabilized, petroleum prices would go sky high. There is also a danger of
this instability spilling over to the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, where
the petroleum is, and which is about half Shiite.

Powerful figures in the Bush administration also very much want to overthrow
the other Baath regime, in Syria. The mostly likely successor to that regime
is a radicalized Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the major Syrian opposition group
(it is not allowed to operate as a party). It would be an ally of Hamas and
hospitable to al-Qaeda. Syria is a Sunni-majority country chafing under rule
by a clique of Allawites, a Shiite sect, who control the secular Syrian Baath.
If Bush artificially causes the Baath to collapse in Damascus, he could create
a Muslim fundamentalist axis stretching from Lebanon through Syria to Sunni
Iraq.

Bush is not winning the war on terror because he does not understand it. He
has used the rise of al-Qaeda as a pretext for settling Washington's scores
with old enemies like Saddam. This projection of main American force so far
has paid no dividends whatsoever, in increased US security or stability in the
world. It has not even made money for US companies, with the possible
exception of Halliburton (and even it claims it has been hurt by bad Iraq
publicity).

The most frightening thing of all is that the Project for a New American
Century group, which has made an internal coup in the Bush administration,
ultimately has its sights on China. They want to surround, besiege and break
up Communist China, as they imagine the US did to the Soviet Union. In many
ways, the Bush administration uses North Korea as a proxy for China, saying
things about Pyongyang they really would like to say about Beijing. In fact,
China is currently increasingly tied to the US-led world economic order and
has every impetus to cooperate with the US on most issues. The Chinese take in
$80 billion a year more from the US than we make from them. Picking a fight
with Beijing, which is a very attractive option for the American Right, would
be disastrous.

The Bush administration is full of revolutionaries. They are shaking up the
world by military force. They are playing a role familiar in modern history,
pioneered by Napoleon Bonaparte, of using overwhelming military superiority to
establish new forms of hegemony by appealing to desires for change among
neighboring publics. Bonaparte promised the Italians liberty on the French
model, but in fact reduced the Italians to a series of French puppet regimes
and then he looted the country. So far Bush's Iraq looks increasingly like
Bonaparte's Italy in these regards.

At a time of increased radicalization in the global South, at a time when mass
terrorism has been made possible by new technologies, the last thing the US
should be risking is destabilizing Asia by provoking a series of revolutions.

Kerry is not a revolutionary, unlike Bush. He recognizes that al-Qaeda is a
real threat and needs to be the main focus of US security thinking. Kerry will
capture or kill Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri because he will put the resources
into that endeavor that Bush instead wasted in Iraq.

Kerry is worried about Iran's nuclear ambitions, but is highly unlikely to
resort to military force or connive at a coup in Tehran. He will use
diplomatic methods and more subtle military pressure.

Kerry will rebuild the alliance with Europe, which is crucial for fighting al-Qaeda.
He will attempt to improve the US image in the Muslim world, which Bush has
completely shattered. His approach to China will be measured.

So the choices are clear. Those who want a revolutionary who will risk further
wars and instability, should vote for Bush. Those who want someone who will
use diplomacy to manage the status quo and roll back asymmetrical threats
should vote for Kerry.